Tennessee: Pain Alone Cannot Constitute Second Injury, No Disqualification After Violating Lifting Weight Limits

The failure, on the part of an injured employee, to abide by lifting restrictions could not alone be sufficient to constitute an independent intervening cause that would relieve his or her employer (or carrier) from the responsibility for continued workers’ compensation benefits, held an Appeals Panel of the Tennessee Supreme Court. Quoting Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 10.01, the Court noted that the direct and natural consequences rule had limits; negligent acts on the part of the injured employee could break the causal connection between the workplace and the injury. Here, however, there was no evidence of an actual new injury. Pain, such as had been experienced by the worker here, when exceeded her lifting restrictions, was not a second injury. Nor was there any evidence that her existing condition had been aggravated. The employer was still liable for benefits.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the co-Editor-in-Chief and Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law(LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis

See Paris v. McKee Foods Corp., 2021 Tenn. LEXIS 53 (Feb. 16, 2021), aff’d, adopted, 2021 Tenn. LEXIS 54 (Feb. 16, 2021)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 10.01.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

Sign up for the free LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation enewsletter at www.lexisnexis.com/wcnews.